


Variations on the Half-Blood Prince

by busaikko, schemingreader



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Cross-cultural, Japan, Judaism, Literary Reference, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-12
Updated: 2005-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-09 23:52:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko, https://archiveofourown.org/users/schemingreader/pseuds/schemingreader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though Rowling created and owns these characters, it doesn't violate fair use for us to encourage them to run away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variations on the Half-Blood Prince

> Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall meet,  
> Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;  
> But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth  
> When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth.  
> [The Ballad of East and West](http://www.bartleby.com/246/1129.html) (Kipling)

**Yom Ha-Din (The Day of Judgment)**

What if Hogwarts were a 19th century Lithuanian _yeshivah_? The beetle-browed Rav Shammai Tuvia is a harshly critical teacher but brilliant; that's why he's the students' favorite. He is studying with his gentle _hevrutah_, the Musar teacher Ze'ev Wulf:

"But Shammai, what if one believed he could save more than one life by committing murder, or perhaps could stop someone else from becoming a habitual murderer?"

"_Narishkeit_, Wulf! The _halakhah_ is clear: one life may not take precedence over another!"

Rav Dworkin, the white-bearded _rosh yeshivah_, intervenes. "But in such a case, divine justice might be tempered by divine mercy."

***

**Werewolf in the Dunes**

What if Snape were Niki Jumpei, the teacher caught in the pit in the sand? What if Lupin were the person trapped with him? The dunes, the desert, the pit of despair; oddly enough, he starts liking it there. Filling bottles and vials with insects and arachnids, with venomous centipedes and scorpions that fluoresce green and yellow like the moon, the world condenses to the abbreviated arc of the sun. One learns to love one's limitations.

Or what if Snape's identity is not a fixed thing, the sum of a commutation card, a staff I.D., a home, a scar, a Mark? What if that identity were erased, what then? When the ambulance wailing into the night carries away the sole witness to your existence, what then? Who are you, and what shall you become when free?

***

**Sunny Day**

What if Hogwarts were on Sesame Street? Severus Snape would be Bert and Remus Lupin would be Ernie. It's true that Bert is also a sallow-skinned, dark-haired boy with heavy, bushy eyebrows and a big nose. He is sometimes lonely and finds it difficult to make friends who share his interests in pigeons and oatmeal. But Bert has Ernie to make him laugh, and Ernie is just an annoying smiling guy with a rubber duckie, not a werewolf. Yes, perhaps they are puppets, but it's better than being a puppet in the hands of Dumbledore or the Dark Lord.

***

**Cuneiform**

What if Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince were the Epic of Gilgamesh? Would Endiku be Lupin, come to befriend Snape, or could Snape himself be Enkidu, torn from his wildness by love as he descends to hell? Could Snape be the great king of Uruk, the superhuman Gilgamesh? Could he be transformed through friendship, or become the lone survivor to tell his deeds to the cold stone walls? Let Severus Snape be a scholar spending his days in the British Museum translating the Akkadian tablets. He can meet Remus for tea to talk about his work. He doesn't need to be the hero; he only needs to have the wild man to hear his dreams.

***  
**Das Urteil (The Judgment)**

What if Severus Snape were Franz Kafka? He thinks perhaps he is. Kafka's family name means jackdaw, his father was domineering and cruel, he lived his life feeling trapped. Perhaps Snape is Kafka, black winged, with a soul that is half cat, half lamb, waiting for the butcher's knife. Should he encourage his disease, choose to spit blood rather than do what is expected of him? Gentle Kafka knew what it was to be a dark impostor. Snape thinks he should tell Lupin that turning into a wolf is not so bad, once you know what it is to become a cockroach.

***

**Samurai **

The Code was clear: loyalty to his _daimyo_ surpassed even loyalty to the law. Shigi had lived with this sword over his head for years; now the blade was close enough to shave hairs.

"You have taken a new Lord," the missionary Lupin said from behind the bars.

"That does not erase my loyalty," Shigi said.

"Will you kill for your daimyo, and be damned?"

Shigi sneered. "And will your master in Roma accept your converts?"

Lupin bowed his head. The next time Shigi saw him he was burning.

And still his foot would not come down on the _fumi-e_.

  
***

**Roah Ha-Gezerah (The Severity of the Verdict)**

So Severus Snape is not a Talmud teacher. Still, he knows that in order to avert the permanent inscription of harsh judgment, he can repent, he can pray, or he can perform righteous deeds. But Snape has nowhere to address repentance or prayer and there is nothing he can imagine that will atone for murder. The Talmud speaks of less direct methods: he can change his name and his place. Opening the covers of the book at the end of chapter twenty-six, he steals away into the pages of some other story he chooses for himself. Someone else will have to cast the curse, perform the betrayals; there is no Severus Snape in this book.

***

"Oh, how we danced with the Rose of Tralee  
Her long hair black as a raven  
Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me  
You'll never be going back home"

Tom Waits  
***  


**Author's Note:**

> Authors' Notes:
> 
> For Yom Ha-Din:  
> yeshivah=Talmudic academy  
> hevrutah=study partner  
> musar=ethics  
> narishkeit=foolishness  
> halakhah=Jewish law  
> rosh yeshivah=headmaster (roughly)
> 
> The Jewish names:  
> Shammai=good equivalent because of the initial letter, reputed character of famous Shammai in the Talmud  
> Tuvia=Tobias--Snape's father's name in HBP  
> Ze'ev=wolf  
> Dworkin=last name derived from Deborah, which means bee, as does Dumbledore
> 
> For Werewolf in the Dunes:  
> These plotlines are from novels by Kobe Abe.
> 
> For Das Urteil:  
> Das Urteil was the title of Kafka's first novel.  
> "half cat, half lamb" comes from Kafka's story [ The Crossbreed](http://www.thecry.com/existentialism/kafka/crossbreed.html)
> 
> For Samurai:  
> "the code"=Bushido, "the way of the warrior"  
> Shigi=a snipe  
> Daimyo=Japanese feudal lord  
> [Japanese Christian converts in the 16th century ](http://hkuhist2.hku.hk/nakasendo/christin.htm) were forced to step on a Christian sacred image, a fumi-e (stepping-picture) to prove their disbelief.


End file.
